Odessa ( Ukrainian : Одеса , Russian : Одесса ; also referred to as Odesa ) is the fourth largest city in Ukraine . It is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast ( province ), and is designated as its own separate raion (district) within the oblast. Odessa is a major port on the Black Sea .

The 2001 population was 1,029,000, and estimated to be around 1,012,500 in 2004.

An ancient Greek colony had once occupied the site of the city. Numerous monuments of antiquity confirm links between this territory and the Eastern Mediterranean . In the Middle Ages these lands were a part of the Kievan Rus , Galich and Volyn Principality, the Golden Horde , the Great Lithuanian Principality , the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire . Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century . In the course of Russian – Turkish wars these lands were captured by Russia at the end of the 18th century.
A colony from ancient Greece may have once occupied the site of the city, and Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century. Odesa itself was founded in 1794 as a Russian naval fortress on territory annexed from Turkey in 1792. By the early 19th century the Russian settlement had become an important grain-exporting port. During the Crimean War (1853-56), Odesa was bombarded by joint French and British naval forces. In 1905 the city was the site of a workers' uprising, supported by the crew of the Russian battleship Potëmkin.